What is the Bitfilm Festival?

If you’re a tech loving film junkie looking for a festival that’s a little bit quirky, then the Bitfilm festival could be it.

While the Bitfilm festival is beginning to fade out, we could see a re-introduction of this interesting festival due to the sudden rise in popularity of the Bitcoin being used in a number of other areas, such as online casinos, RPG games, trading and much more. Since 2000, Bitfilm Production have been organising the Bitfilm festival, which showcased films that used new digital technologies in an innovative, creative and unique way. This was all carried out as an online event, but there were a number of guest events which would take place throughout the world in Hamburg, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, Bangalore, Tokyo and many other cities.

In 2014 however, the film festival was reinvented in order to provide viewers with the world’s first film festival that showed films related to the elusive yet popular crypto currency Bitcoin. Here, we’re taking a look at what Bitcoin actually is, giving you a rundown of the last Bitfilm festival (which happened in 2015) and discussing whether we’re likely to see a return of this intriguing festival.

What Is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a type of crypto currency that can be used in a number of ways and has the potential to reinvent the world of finance, gaming, banking, government and much more. This powerful, decentralised currency is one of the most interesting technologies that we have seen since the turn of the century, and while still in its infancy, Bitcoin has developed rapidly over the years.

One of the major places we have seen Bitcoin begin to leave its mark is in the online gaming industry. Sites such as Bitcoin Casino Pro act as a central hub to provide those new to Bitcoin with a lot of information about the crypto currency, but also where to find the best Bitcoin casino games and sites suited to each player – drawn from reviews and rankings by people who have genuinely played on the site. One major benefit of sites like these and the crypto currency itself is the fact that it is completely decentralised from a central banking system, meaning countries all around the world, whether they have legal jurisdictions against online gambling or not, are able to access all of the different ways to use this currency.

It is this interesting anonymity, accessibility and ease of use that makes Bitcoin and the blockchain technology as a whole an interesting topic for a range of films. This is where Bitfilm Festival comes in.

Bitfilm Festival 2015

Bitfilm Festival headed out on a worldwide tour which ended in February 2016 across a number of cities around the world including Berlin, Saigon, Budapest, Ubud/Bali and many others, with the final screening and awards ceremony taking place in Buenos Aires. Interestingly enough, fans of the festival were the ones that took part in the voting for the films and in order to vote, people would send Bitcoins to the films that they liked best. Simply, the film in the category with the highest amount of donations won the Bitfilm award. Some of the films that were included in the awards ceremony included:

Finding Satoshi Nakamoto (Short Film) – Mike Anzel

Life On Bitcoin – The Good Line, Travis Pitcher, Joseph LeBaron

Bitcoin Traveller: Paragliding Challenge – Felix Weis

Bitcoin: The End Of Money As We Know It – Torsten Hoffmann

How Bitcoin Is Like The Internet In The 80s – Joe Posner

Will Bitfilm Festival Return?

With Bitcoin’s popularity rising once again, and the potential for the crypto currency expanding further and further each day, it would be no surprise to see a resurfacing of the quirky Bitfilm festival, although there is a bit of a catch. So far, over 70% of the 21 million Bitcoins having already been mined which means that we might be moving towards the end of this incredible crypto currency. However, that doesn’t mean that people’s interest in the technology will fade. With the potential for Bitcoin and the blockchain technology ever extending, we’re looking forward to seeing a return to the Bitfilm festival and exploring just how far movie makers can push the potential of the crypto currency.